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9.13.2011

More people are living in poverty today than at any point ever recorded in the 54 years since statistics first started to be recorded. 46.2 million Americans, 1 in 6 of us, must manage to survive on less then $10,830 a year or a measly $22,050 for a family of four. The poverty rate spiked to 15.1% in 2010 the Census Bureau reported on Tuesday, with a whopping 2.6 million people slipping below the threshold.

What is the poverty line? Check out this video from a few years ago, when things were actually a lot better...

Median household incomes are also in steep decline, falling 2.3% between 2009 and 2010 to $49,400 which is a 7% slip from the 1999 peak of $53,252.

45.3% of Americans between the ages of 25-34 now live below the poverty line, forcing them to move back home with parents or into communal living situations.

Timothy Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research and Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison says:

“We’re risking a new underclass. Young, less educated adults, mainly men, can’t support their children and form stable families because they are jobless.”